Broken Arrow is a western Technicolor film released in 1950. The film was directed by Delmer Daves and starred by James Stewart as Tom Jeffords and Jeff Chandler as Cochise. The film is based on historical figures but defines their story in dramatized form. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, and won the Golden Globe award for Best Movie Promoting International Understanding. Film historians have said that the film was one of the first Western Westerns since the Second World War to portray Indians sympathetically.
Video Broken Arrow (1950 film)
Plot
Tom Jeffords found a 14-year-old Apache boy who was wounded and dying of a wound on his back. Jeffords gave the boy water and healed the wound. The boy's tribe appeared and was initially hostile but decided to let Jefford go free. However, as a group of gold miners approached, Apache silenced Jefford and tied him to a tree. Helpless, he saw as they attacked prospective seekers and tortured survivors. The soldiers then let him go but warned him not to enter the Apache area again.
When Jeffords returned to Tucson, he met a candidate who had escaped the ambush. He corrects a man's over-attack of the attack, but Ben Slade does not believe it and does not understand why Jeffords did not kill the Apache boy. Instead, Jeffords studied the language and customs of Apache and planned to go to the Cochise camp on behalf of his friend Milt, who was in charge of the postal service in Tucson. Jeffords enters the Apache castle and starts a parley with Cochise, who agrees to let the couriers pass by. Jeffords meets a young girl Apache, Sonseeahray, and falls in love.
Some Cochise soldiers attacked an army cart and killed the victims. The townspeople almost killed Jefford as a traitor before he was rescued by General Oliver Otis Howard who recruited Jeffords to negotiate peace with Cochise. Howard, "General Christian" condemns racism, saying that the Bible "does not say anything about skin pigmentation". Jeffords made a peace deal with Cochise, but the group led by Geronimo, opposed the treaty and left the stronghold. When these rebels ambushed the postal trains, Jeffords went to seek help from Cochise and the postal carriage was kept.
Jeffords and Sonseeahray are married in the Apache ceremony and have a few days of tranquility. Later, Ben Slade's son turned the story to Jeffords and Cochise about his two horses stolen by the Cochise people. Cochise said that his people did not take them and doubt his story, because he knew the boy's father was an Apache hater. They then decided to go along with the boys over the canyon but were ambushed by the boy's father and a group of men from Tucson. Jeffles was badly injured and Sonseeahray was killed, but Cochise killed most of the men, including Ben Slade. Cochise forbade Jeffords retaliate, saying that the ambush was not carried out by the military and that Geronimo destroyed the peace not less than Slade and his men, and that peace must be maintained. Jeffords goes with the conviction that "Sonseeahray's death has given seal to the peace, and from that day wherever I go, in the cities, between Apaches and in the mountains, I always remember, my wife is with me".
Maps Broken Arrow (1950 film)
Cast
Production
Producer Julius Blaustein recalled, "We had a really bad time finding an actor with the right voice and stature to play Cochise.Before we found Chandler, we even considered Ezio Pinza."
Jeff Chandler was cast in May 1949 on the basis of his performance in the Sword in the Desert. He worked on several radio series at the time, Michael Shayne and our Miss Brooks , and had to be written from them for several weeks.
The filming began on June 6, 1949. The film was primarily shot at a location in northern Arizona, about 30 miles south of Flagstaff. Apache from the Whiteriver agent at Fort Apache Indian Reservation playing alone. Debra Paget was only 16 when she played a love interest for 42-year-old James Stewart. Canadian Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels plays Geronimo.
The film is based on a 558 page novel Blood Brother (1947) by Elliott Arnold, who tells the story of a peace treaty between the Apache Cochise leader and the US Army, 1855-1874. The studio employs nearly 240 Indians from the Arizona Fort Apache Indian Reservation; many scene locations were taken in Sedona, Arizona. (The Cochise Story actually takes place in what is now the Dragoon Mountains in the Ranger Douglas District of the Coronado National Forest in southeastern Arizona.) This studio attempts to describe the Apache habit in films, such as the Social Dance and the Girls' Generation Rite Ceremony ). For Cochise characters, director Daves eliminates the broken traditional English style and replaces it with conventional English so that whites and Indians will sound the same.
Indian depictions
Although many Westerners from the pre-World War II period described American Indians as enemies of white settlers, others showed Indians with a positive light. Broken Arrow, however, is noteworthy for being one of the first post-war Westerners to portray Native Americans in a balanced and sympathetic way - though most Indians are played by white actors, with Brooklyn born Jeff Chandler describes the leader of Apache Cochise. The exception is that the original Canadian Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels is best known for his role as Geronimo in the movie.
Some scholars say the film is calling for an ideal of tolerance and racial equality that will affect later Westerners and show Hollywood's response to India's growing role in American society. The Chronicle of the Cinema praised the film: "Based on verifiable facts, it faithfully evokes the historical relationship between Cochise and Jefford, marking the historical rehabilitation of Indians in cinemas."
In 1950, Rosebud Yellow Robe, an American folklorist, educator and original author, was hired by Twentieth-Century Fox to conduct a nationwide tour to promote the film. Rosebud explained that there is nothing like an Indian princess, and the myth began when Pocahontas went to England and the Englishman named her "Lady Rebecca". Rosebud voiced complaints about Indians' portrayals on radio, screen, and television to "... a new generation of children learn about old stereotypes about whooping, fighting Indians, as if nothing else is interesting about us."
Apache Wedding Prayer
Apache Wedding Prayer is written for this film.
Awards and honors
- Best Supporting Actor (nominated) - Jeff Chandler
- Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay (nomination) - Albert Maltz (front: Michael Blankfort) from Elliott Arnold's novel
- Academy Award for Best Cinematography, color (nomination) - Ernest Palmer
The film is recognized by the American Film Institute in this list:
- 2008: 10 Top 10 AFI:
- Nominated Western Film
Adaptation to other media
Broken Arrow was dramatized as an hour-long radio drama on January 22, 1951, starring Burt Lancaster and Debra Paget. It was also presented as a half-hour broadcast from Screen Director's Playhouse on September 7, 1951, with James Stewart and Jeff Chandler in their original film role. The film and novel also became the basis for a television series of the same name that started from 1956 to 1960, starring Michael Ansara as Cochise and John Lupton as Jeffords.
Cultural reference
- The premiere of the film was held in Roxy, New York City.
- The Blackfoot Indians will use a broken arrow to signal that they will stop fighting.
- After watching the movie, Colombian cyclist Martin Emilio Rodriguez adopted the "Cochise" nickname of the movie character he most loves.
References
Note
- Aleiss, Angela, Making White Indian Men: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies , London & amp; CT: Praeger, 2005; ISBN: 0-275-98396-X
- Karney, Robyn (editor), Chronicle of the Cinema ; London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995; ISBNÃ, 0-7894-0123-1
- Lenihan, John H. Controversy: Facing Modern America in Western Movies , Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980; ISBN: 0-252-00769-7
- O'Conner, John E. & amp; Peter C. Rollins, eds. Hollywood's Indian: The Portrayal of Native American in Film [Paperback], The University Press of Kentucky, 2003; ISBN: 0813190770
External links
- Broken Arrow on IMDb
- Broken Arrow in the TCM Movie Database
- Broken Arrow in AllMovie
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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